I just finished reading 'The death of a Moth' by Virgina Woolfe. Those were some elevated thoughts. And while they do everything they were meant to do - arouse pity for the moth, be charmed by the intricacies of her thinking, be awed by the skilled use of the language, they do another - which was also perhaps intended. They make you wonder whether you are a statue of stone totally in capable of thought. Would a dying moth rise in me such reflection? Would it in you? If yes, then perhaps you should consider writing as a career.
It would be untrue of me to say that such an aspiration has not kept me awake at night at least for a few weary, restless, agitated hours. But such aspiration alone is not sufficient to make one any special. For I believe at least every other person has such an aspiration, not necessarily for a literary career, but to excel and distinguish oneself in some field of study, provided such an aspiration is not crushed in one's youth by well meaning parents. But surely one half of the population does not establish themselves as exceptional. Of course if that were the case, exceptional would become common place and exceedingly exceptional would become the new exceptional. But history shows us (atleast that history of which we have record) that there are people in the world who have excelled over others by such a vast degree of achievement that we can draw the conclusion that these were just not exceedingly exceptional, they were just exceptional, because the rest were ordinary. This degree of simple exception can now be tremendous and need not have a superlative adjective to enhance its worth.
I think about the moth and the bead of pure energy in it. The same energy which exists in us too. We will beat futilely against our glass windows, hoping to reach a world that exists (it does!), where the sun shines, where the smoke from the chimney rises and where green fields are furrowed. We will aspire with every flap of our flimsy wings, we will fly from corner to corner seeking redemption everywhere, but there is just no getting out of the glass windows. Perhaps hope is not that good a thing after all. Maybe it only draws out the suffering?
It would be untrue of me to say that such an aspiration has not kept me awake at night at least for a few weary, restless, agitated hours. But such aspiration alone is not sufficient to make one any special. For I believe at least every other person has such an aspiration, not necessarily for a literary career, but to excel and distinguish oneself in some field of study, provided such an aspiration is not crushed in one's youth by well meaning parents. But surely one half of the population does not establish themselves as exceptional. Of course if that were the case, exceptional would become common place and exceedingly exceptional would become the new exceptional. But history shows us (atleast that history of which we have record) that there are people in the world who have excelled over others by such a vast degree of achievement that we can draw the conclusion that these were just not exceedingly exceptional, they were just exceptional, because the rest were ordinary. This degree of simple exception can now be tremendous and need not have a superlative adjective to enhance its worth.
I think about the moth and the bead of pure energy in it. The same energy which exists in us too. We will beat futilely against our glass windows, hoping to reach a world that exists (it does!), where the sun shines, where the smoke from the chimney rises and where green fields are furrowed. We will aspire with every flap of our flimsy wings, we will fly from corner to corner seeking redemption everywhere, but there is just no getting out of the glass windows. Perhaps hope is not that good a thing after all. Maybe it only draws out the suffering?
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